2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women. In recognition of this anniversary, the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, NY organized an NGO Global Women’s Forum. NGO’s gathered together to advocate for a full implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. Around 1000 people were present at the two days forum. We discussed issues like more women leadership, more education for girls and women, greater involvement of women in peace negotiations. Therefore full gender equality is needed.

The corridors and podiums of the United Nations have been taken over by powerful women: government ministers, senior UN officials, and women’s rights leaders from around the world. They have gathered in New York to chart the progress of a landmark declaration on women’s empowerment and gender equality, which was issued at a UN conference in Beijing 15 years ago.

There is a mood of achievement. Britain’s minister for women and equality, Harriet Harman, spoke of major changes since she started out in government in 1997.

Since mid February a petition on Amnesty International’s suspension on Gita Saghal, head of AI’s gender unit, circulates on the internet. It has been signed by internationally known feminists like Charlotte Bunch, Mallika Dutt, Sonia Corea, Yakin Ertuk, Ros Petchesky, Virginia Vargas. Salman Rushdie also signed. It is supported by various organisations including AWID, the Urgent Action Fund, Women living under Muslim Laws. So far not that many organisations and individuals based in the Netherlands did sign. High time to change that.

After a good preparation in the Netherlands where the NGO’s made recommendations for the Ministerial Delegation and a fruitful briefing I was looking forward to visiting the 54th CSW and the NGO Global Forum Beijing + 15 in New York. I am hoping that the Declaration of the Nations as the result of the CSW 54 would be more than an agreement of the execution of the Beijing Platform for Action (PfA), which was already agreed in 1995! I was pleased with the appreciation for the position paper of the NVR “Women: Agents of Change” and some parts were even adopted in official documents.

On the one but last day of the CSW, the Dutch government in collaboration with AWID, Hivos and Mama Cash hosted a side event on the opportunities for governments to successfully invest in women’s empowerment and gender equality. At the CSW two years ago the Dutch government hosted a similar event. It then launched the MDG3 Fund, a new € 50 million fund in support of Millennium Goal 3: women’s empowerment and gender equality. The overwhelming number of applications submitted, more than 450, asked for multiple folds the amount of resources available. The Fund was raised to € 70 million. Forty five, predominantly international and regional, organisations have since received funding out of the MDG3 Fund. Their activities take place in 105 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Robert Dijksterhuis, head of the gender division at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, used the occasion of this year’s CSW to highlight the relevance of this new funding mechanism, its collaboration with Dutch NGOs as co-signatories to the Fund, and the experience of MDG3 Fund recipients of being capacitated to scale up their work. Dijksterhuis was adamant about his mission: “We as governments can not drive this agenda of gender equality and women’s empowerment on our own. But we can support it as women’s organisations are the driving force. We need to support scaling up of their agenda and programmes. It can be done, and should be done and I so appeal to other donors, fellow bilaterals, foundations and International NGOs to do the same, either contribute to the MDG3 Fund or the UNIFEM Fund for Gender Equality, or set up similar funding mechanisms.”

Herstory was made on the second day of the CSW in New York. The Dutch government, with support from their Belgian and Portuguese counterparts, hosted a panel on human dignity for lesbian and bisexual women and transgender persons. It was the first, ever, official government organised event at the CSW on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. The meeting space was packed with good attendance by representatives from LBT organisations throughout the world, including many Hivos partners.

There is not much space for Civil Society to meaningfully engage with their governments and influence the current CSW processes. There is little transparency and access to information is limited. For many people registering and moving around during this CSW is a logistical nightmare. And to top it all off there is a feeling that this process is a bit of a façade. The declaration will not be negotiated, so there will not be a new outcome document. Member states have chosen to copy and paste the declaration from 5 years ago because they fear that opening up the declaration for negotiations will mean taking steps back.